Supercritical extraction of lyophilized strawberry anthocyanins with pulsed electric fields pretreatment

Anthocyanins from LSB and with a PEF pretreatment were extracted with ethanol + SCCO2. The extraction at 200 bar, 333.15, 3.3% wt. of ethanol as cosolvent and using LSB with a PEF pretreatment of 1 kV/cm, produced an extraction yield of 0.284 % and a TAC of 0.231 (g/100 g of ethanol + SCCO2). The individual effect of 1.0 kV/cm of PEF pretreatment increases the %EY by 25 % and the TAC by 29 %. The individual effect of the cosolvent increases the %EY by 32% and that of TAC by 36.4%. However, the combined effect of 1.0 kV cm-1 and 3.3 % ethanol, produced an increase of 78.2 % and 85.3% in the %EY and TAC, respectively. Therefore, these results suggest that there is a synergistic effect, which means that both the electroporation caused by PEF in the LSB and the increase in polarity due to the addition of ethanol produce a substantial improvement over %ET and TAC. Furthermore, the process of extracting anthocyanins from LSB using a mixture of ethanol + supercritical carbon dioxide can be satisfactorily described by a solubility-based model such as the Kumar and Johnston model.The lyophilized strawberry anthocyanins were extracted using a supercritical extraction (SE) process. The effect of pulsed electric fields (PEF) as pretreatment and the influence of the addition of ethanol as a cosolvent on the percentage of extraction yield (EY) and the total anthocyanin concentration (TAC) were analyzed. The effect of PEF was evaluated at 0.5 and 1.0 kV/cm, while the effect of the cosolvent was studied in mixtures of supercritical carbon dioxide - ethanol (SCCO2 + ethanol) at 1.6 and 3.3% by weight. The best results (% EY = 0.506, TAC = 0.428 g /100 g of lyophilized strawberry) were obtained with a PEF pretreatment of 1.0 kV cm-1, 3.3%wt. ethanol at 200 bar and 333.15 K. The experimental results of solubility were suitably adjusted with the Kumar and Johnston model. The maximum solubility (0.114 g/100 g of solvent mixture) was obtained at 300 bar and 313.15 K.The authors would like to thank the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACyT) for the scholarship granted to the master’s student in chemical sciences Marco A. Ávila-Hernández

Waste Cellulose from Tetra Pak Packages as Reinforcement of Cement Concrete

The development of the packaging industry has promoted indiscriminately the use of disposable packing as Tetra Pak, which after a very short useful life turns into garbage, helping to spoil the environment. One of the known processes that can be used for achievement of the compatibility between waste materials and the environment is the gamma radiation, which had proved to be a good tool for modi cation of physicochemical properties of materials. The aim of this work is to study the e ects of waste cellulose fromTetra Pak packing and gammaradiation on themechanical properties of cement concrete.Concrete specimens were elaborated with waste cellulose at concentrations of 3, 5, and 7 wt% and irradiated at 200 , 250 , and 300 kGy of gamma dose. The results show highest improvement on the mechanical properties for concrete with 3 wt% of waste cellulose and irradiated at 300 kGy; such improvements were related with the surface morphology of fracture zones of cement concrete observed by SEM microscopy

Reference values for areal bone mineral density among a healthy Mexican population

Objective. Compare the influence of ethnicity in the prevalence of osteopenia and osteoporosis in various Mexican populations using two normal dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) reference databases: manufacturer¿s incorporating US Hispanic population and a normal mestizo Mexican population. Material and Methods. MMP included 9 946 subjects participating in an ongoing long-term cohort study focusing on lifestyle and chronic diseases, of which 6 487 MMP males and females aged 7 to 80 years were the normal subjects used to determine bone density T- and Z-scores, following WHO criteria, and peak bone mass values. Abnormal bone mass density values estimated by the manufacturer's and peak bone mass reference values were compared. Results and Conclusions. Our results show that by using the manufacturer´s T-score values in the mestizo Mexican population we are underestimating the number of abnormal bone mass BMD populations

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

Clonal chromosomal mosaicism and loss of chromosome Y in elderly men increase vulnerability for SARS-CoV-2

The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19) had an estimated overall case fatality ratio of 1.38% (pre-vaccination), being 53% higher in males and increasing exponentially with age. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, we found 133 cases (1.42%) with detectable clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations (mCA) and 226 males (5.08%) with acquired loss of chromosome Y (LOY). Individuals with clonal mosaic events (mCA and/or LOY) showed a 54% increase in the risk of COVID-19 lethality. LOY is associated with transcriptomic biomarkers of immune dysfunction, pro-coagulation activity and cardiovascular risk. Interferon-induced genes involved in the initial immune response to SARS-CoV-2 are also down-regulated in LOY. Thus, mCA and LOY underlie at least part of the sex-biased severity and mortality of COVID-19 in aging patients. Given its potential therapeutic and prognostic relevance, evaluation of clonal mosaicism should be implemented as biomarker of COVID-19 severity in elderly people. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, individuals with clonal mosaic events (clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations and/or loss of chromosome Y) showed an increased risk of COVID-19 lethality

The 16th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys : First Release from the APOGEE-2 Southern Survey and Full Release of eBOSS Spectra

This paper documents the 16th data release (DR16) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), the fourth and penultimate from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). This is the first release of data from the Southern Hemisphere survey of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2); new data from APOGEE-2 North are also included. DR16 is also notable as the final data release for the main cosmological program of the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), and all raw and reduced spectra from that project are released here. DR16 also includes all the data from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey and new data from the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Survey programs, both of which were co-observed on eBOSS plates. DR16 has no new data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey (or the MaNGA Stellar Library "MaStar"). We also preview future SDSS-V operations (due to start in 2020), and summarize plans for the final SDSS-IV data release (DR17).Peer reviewe